USPTO granted U.S. Patent No. 10,000,772 to the UC team, marking their first U.S. CRISPR-Cas9 patent grant.
On June 19, 2018, the United States Patent and Trademark Office granted U.S. Patent No. 10,000,772 to the University of California team — including Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier — for their CRISPR-Cas9 genome-editing technology.
This was the UC team's first U.S. patent grant for CRISPR-Cas9, arriving more than four years after the Broad Institute's initial 2014 patent and following years of contentious interference proceedings before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. The grant represented a significant vindication for Doudna's team, affirming their foundational contributions within the U.S. patent system despite the Broad Institute's earlier procedural head start.
The patent covered core methods of using CRISPR-Cas9 for genome editing, providing the legal foundation for licensing agreements with numerous biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies pursuing CRISPR-based therapeutics, agricultural improvements, and diagnostic tools.
This grant was the first in what would become a rapidly expanding portfolio of U.S. patents awarded to the UC team over subsequent years, ultimately establishing the University of California as a dominant force in the U.S. CRISPR intellectual property landscape and securing significant licensing revenue and influence over the direction of gene-editing commercialization.